Niche Academy

Access Niche Academy to find quality tutorials on conducting research, evaluating sources, gaining digital literacy skills, and many other topics. From  Niche Academy's main page, you can browse through all the tutorials CWU Libraries currently has available such as:

• Digital Literacy & Data
• Fighting Fake News
• Research Essentials
• Using Primary Sources

Niche Academy's tutorials provide step-by-step instruction that include closed captioning and descriptive text for students to following along with. Each video includes interactive components (quizzes, mini writing prompts, activities, etc.) throughout the lesson which have students apply what they just learned. Each tutorial ends with a a graded quiz for students to complete; to learn more, go to the section on this page titled Quizzes and Knowledge Checks .

If you are interested in including a Niche Academy tutorial in your course, you can simply select the tutorial you are interested in and copy + paste the URL to your Canvas course or send the link directly to students for them to complete.

Research Essentials

Niche Academy integrates quizzes and knowledge checks into their tutorials.

• Knowledge checks are used as formative assessments. You can provide immediate feedback in a knowledge check based on the learner's response. Feedback for correct answers can be "Great job!"; feedback for incorrect answers can outline why it is incorrect, what the correct answer is, and why there might be some confusion between the two, creating a teachable moment. Since a knowledge check isn't used to capture the learner's final understanding, knowledge checks are not scored. This gives the learners the freedom to be intellectually honest without feeling like they're being judged. This also means learners are not able to retake a knowledge check as the answers are a reflection of their understanding in that moment, not their final understanding.
• Quizzes are used as summative assessments; they're measuring the learner's understanding after engaging with the learning material. Since they come at the end of the learning material, quizzes do not provide feedback, which would create a teachable moment and no longer reflect the learner's final understanding. Quizzes are scored and reflected in the learner report. Optional settings are available so learners can retake a quiz if they don't pass above a certain score. This gives learners the opportunity to review the learning material.